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Topic: Hello (Read 667 times)

Ive been lurking here for a couple of years now so thought i ought to show my face.

I found the forum when i was thinking about buying myself a lathe and stumbled across Andrews Traub rebuild thread - excellent reading, thanks Andrew!

I have a few current projects;The ongoing renovation of an old wooden sailing yacht, Currently working on a new bowsprit after last winters gales destroyed the old one Building an FRP composite sea kayakConverting my milling machine to CNC& if our house purchase goes through, building a new workshop

I'll try and share a few of these as they progress, hopefully someone will find it interesting

The sea kayak is being built in a mold i acquired via eBay, not sure of the design, but about 17' long and quite high volume - which suits me at 6'2"

I built a very light polyester / chopped strand boat from it a couple of years ago which paddled beautifully but regrettably sank on the Solent during a trial paddle, however i did get enough paddling in to convince myself that the design & mold where worthwhile, so I am prepared to invest some better material in another boat

The mold is in 3 parts, a forward and after deck section, and a 1 piece hull. Progress so far is to make the two deck sections, Layup is: Polyester gel coat, then 200g CSM & 450g carbon bi-ax infused with epoxy. I've not been able to balance them on my scales, but i estimate about 5-6Kg total for the deck.

Hull will be Gel, 200g CSM, 300g e-glass twill, 3mm PVC foam, 300g e-glass twill. with some carbon UD down the center and along the gunnels. Biggest challenge with the hull is working out how to fit it into the garage, I've acquired a couple of extra machine tools since i built the last one...